In Case You Missed It: Joni Ernst Caught On Tape Saying Poor People Aren’t Entitled to Food, Clothing, or Health Care

AUTHOR: RYAN DENSON FEBRUARY 16, 2015 7:03 AM

Last year, around the time after the elections, an unearthed recording of now Senator Joni Ernst was revealed to the public, truly showing the lack of compassion and monstrosity that has engulfed the GOP. The video captures Ernst’s monologue in which she says Americans are insufficiently “self sufficient,” and therefore feel entitled to government programs:

“What we have to do a better job of is educating not only Iowans, but the American people that they can be self-sufficient. They don’t have to rely on the government to be the do-all, end-all for everything they need and desire, and that’s what we have fostered, is really a generation of people that rely on the government to provide absolutely everything for them. It’s going to take a lot of education to get people out of that. It’s going to be very painful and we know that. So do we have the intestinal fortitude to do that?…

We’re looking at Obamacare right now. Once we start with those benefits in January, how are we going to get people off of those? It’s exponentially harder to remove people once they’ve already been on those programs…we rely on government for absolutely everything. And in the years since I was a small girl up until now into my adulthood with children of my own, we have lost a reliance on not only our own families, but so much of what our churches and private organizations used to do. They used to have wonderful food pantries. They used to provide clothing for those that really needed it. But we have gotten away from that. Now we’re at a point where the government will just give away anything.”

Yeah, the government will give you a six-figure salary, free healthcare, a lifetime pension, travel expenses, your own paid staff, allowances for food and office renovations…oh wait…that’s you, Senator Ernst.

“It’s going to be very painful and we know that. So do we have the intestinal fortitude to do that.”

Well if this doesn’t sound like a sadistic elitist I don’t what is. Exactly why is this going to be painful? Why would one want to inflict such pain on people who are clearly in need after having the rug pulled out from underneath them in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? And if you even have to question whether or not you “have the intestinal fortitude to do that,” here’s really big hint: you don’t do it. You don’t hurt people so you can be this semi-important unsung hero of the right. You’re never going to be Reagan, so stop trying.

“And in the years since I was a small girl up until now into my adulthood with children of my own, we have lost a reliance on not only our own families, but so much of what our churches and private organizations used to do.”

I got a few words for you, Senator Bread-Bags: your family’s “reliance” came from the federal government at a cost to the tax-payers of $460,000. I rest my case on that point.

Congratulations, Iowa (where over 900,000 residents- or one-third of the state- receives some form of government assistance) on electing this woman who thinks you’re all just a bunch of lazy, entitled moochers, and who wants to inflict a “painful” ideology on you.